Author Topic: Wire taps jump 19% in 2004  (Read 834 times)

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Offline Anonymous

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Wire taps jump 19% in 2004
« on: April 29, 2005, 01:50:00 PM »
:scared:  :scared:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/04/28/incre ... index.html

Wiretaps in U.S. jump 19 percent in 2004
No request was turned by judges, records show
Thursday, April 28, 2005 Posted: 11:55 AM EDT (1555 GMT)

 
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of secret court-authorized wiretaps across the country surged by 19 percent last year, according to court records which also showed that not a single application was denied.

State and federal judges approved 1,710 applications for wiretaps of wire, oral or electronic communications last year, and four states -- New York, California, New Jersey and Florida -- accounted for three out of every four surveillance orders, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

That agency is required to collect the figures and report them to Congress.

The numbers, released Thursday, do not include court orders for terror-related investigations under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which reached a record 1,754 warrants last year, according to the Justice Department.

In non-terrorist criminal investigations, federally-approved wiretaps increased 26 percent in a year, to 730 applications, while state judges approved 930 wiretaps, an increase of 13 percent.

Officials said most of the applications, some 1,308, were for drug investigations, while racketeering or gambling wiretaps accounted for a combined 128 wiretaps around the country.

Homicides and assaults produced 48 wiretap orders.

Most of the wiretap applications, some 1,507 wiretaps, targeted portable devices, such as cell phones and pagers.

By the end of the year, the surveillance had generated 4,506 arrests and 634 convictions based on wiretap evidence.

Federal and state judges are required to file a written report about each application within 30 days of the expiration of the court order.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Antigen

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Wire taps jump 19% in 2004
« Reply #1 on: April 29, 2005, 07:05:00 PM »
I remember when the new wiretap provisions came out. A good many good folks who were working hard at clinging to their simplistic version of faith in the good ol'e US saying that, just because they can doesn't mean they will and that we need these new police powers to reign in terrorism and terrorists. I wish they had been right.

With soap, baptism is a good thing.
--Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician and lecturer

« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
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